Introduction

Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-10989-6 — A History of Modern Psychology Per Saugstad Excerpt More Information 1 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Introduction A Short Characterization of Present-Day Psychology 1 The Present Approach to the Study of the History of Psychology 2 How Did Empirical Psychology Originate? 2 Edwin Boring’s Book on the History of Psychology 3 History as University Politics 3 Philosophy and Scientiic Empirical Psychology 4 Sigmund Koch’s View of the History of Psychology 5 Expansion in Natural Science 7 Where Did Psychology Originate? 7 The Emergence of Scientiic Psychology 8 Why Is Psychology Changing? 10 Progress in Empirical Psychology 11 No Simple Criteria for the Assessment of Progress in Empirical Research 12 Plan for the Book 13 In this chapter, I shall irst give a short description of psychology as an empirical science as it appears at the beginning of the twenty-irst century. Then, I shall discuss how a study of the history of psychology can contribute to our understanding of present-day psychology. Further, I shall account for the way (I believe) psychology as an empirical science originated. Finally, before I present the plan for the book, I shall discuss reasons why empirical psychology over time has undergone changes. In this discussion, I shall be particularly concerned with the problem of assessing progress in psychology as an empirical science. A Short Characterization of Present-Day Psychology Here at the beginning of the twenty-irst century, psychology as an empirical science has grown into a broad, diversiied ield of study. We can gain an impression of its breadth by noting that it borders on the biological sciences on the one hand and the social sciences on the other. Psychology is a theoretical as well as an applied science, and also a profession incor- porating a number of specialties. In a wide variety of areas it has produced knowledge useful for the solution of theoretical problems as well as problems of practical and social © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-10989-6 — A History of Modern Psychology Per Saugstad Excerpt More Information 2 1 Introduction life. However, so far, psychology has hardly produced comprehensive theories or scien- tiically acceptable principles of a general nature. Thus, the discipline appears highly fragmented. The Present Approach to the Study of the History of Psychology The attempt to establish psychology as an empirical science raised several questions that were not easily answered and that soon became controversial. Questions such as what is the relationship between mind and brain, between human and animal behavior, and between genetic endowment and environmental inluence (nature and nurture) emerged at the inception of the discipline and have remained controversial to this day. At an early stage, disagreement arose about whether we should conceive of psychology as the study of mental experiences or the study of behavior. In what sense should we regard as mental experiences various types of nonconscious processes, such as the subconscious and the unconscious? How do society and culture inluence human thinking and behavior? This last question emerged later in psychology’s history and is of central importance for the advancement of psychology as an empirical science. When controversial questions such as these have been satisfactorily answered, psychology will be considerably advanced. I believe a critical, historical examination of them can contribute to their conceptual clariication. For this reason, I give the study of its history a central place in the general study of psychology. Ernst Mayr (1982, p. 16), who called my attention to the prominent role played by the historical examination of long-standing controversies in a ield of science, stated the point in his history of evolutionary biology as follows: Even today’s controversies have a root that usually goes far back in time. It is precisely the historical study of such controversies that often contributes materially to a conceptual clariication and thus makes the ultimate solution possible. By clarifying the available concepts and creating new ones, scientists make their thinking and communication more eficient. As James Conant (1947/1951) and Mayr (1982) have argued, the best way to understand a science is to study how its main concepts are used. I agree with them on this point, and in this book I shall undertake a detailed examination of how some of the most inluential psychological researchers have used their main concepts, including careful descriptions of their research. My concentration on the scientiic concepts does not suggest that I believe the inven- tion of new techniques is not signiicant. Progress often comes with new techniques, but I believe that if new techniques do not result in new or improved concepts, their introduction does not represent important scientiic progress. How Did Empirical Psychology Originate? A book on the history of psychology written by Harvard professor Edwin Boring in 1929 greatly inluenced the ideas psychologists have had of the history of their discipline. To © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-10989-6 — A History of Modern Psychology Per Saugstad Excerpt More Information How Did Empirical Psychology Originate? 3 get an overview of the problems related to the question of how psychology originated, let us take Boring’s book as our starting point. Edwin Boring’s Book on the History of Psychology Boring (1929/1950) represented the origin of psychology as the convergence of two lines drawn through the scientiic and intellectual history of the West: One through philosophy and the other through physiology. In his view, the lines converged in the study of perception started by German researchers around 1850 and eventually met in the psychological studies of Wilhelm Wundt. According to Boring, Wundt was the founder of experimental psychology, and, slightly altering Boring’s account, several historians have dated the beginning of scientiic psychology to Wundt’s establishment of the world’s irst experimental psychological laboratory in Leipzig in 1879. According to Boring, we can regard experimental psychology as having been founded by Wundt in 1879 and as having spread irst throughout Germany and subsequently to other European nations and to the United States. Boring’s account of the origin of German experimental psychology, published ifty years after the establishment of the Leipzig laboratory, was comprehensive, yet at the same time outstanding in its simplicity. It remained unchallenged for nearly half a century. To Boring, scientiic psychology primarily meant experimental psychology, and his book was entitled A History of Experimental Psychology (1929/1950). Actually, it dealt with all areas regarded as belonging to scientiic psychology during Boring’s time. British comparative animal psychology, based on ield studies, was included with the (doubtful) justiication that animal psychology belongs to the laboratory; studies of individual differences and personality psychology were included because they are based on testing, and testing could be seen as a type of experimental psychology. Even stranger was the rationale for including clinical psychology: It might, said Boring in his foreword, become experimental. History as University Politics Boring had been appointed professor at Harvard a few years prior to writing his history. During the time he was working on the book, considerable controversy raged over the nature of psychology, both at Harvard and at other US universities. Behaviorism was about to become one of the dominant schools, and psychoanalysis was gaining ground in psychology and psychiatry. Boring himself represented the 1800s view of psychology, psychology as the study of consciousness; in his own empirical research he carried on the German tradition in experimental psychology. His teacher, Edward Titchener, to whom Boring’s book was dedicated, was also a representative of this tradition. Boring had additional goals. By highlighting German experimental psychology, he could, as John O’Donnell (1979) notes, claim that psychology irst had to develop as an empirical theoretical discipline before it could become an applied discipline. Further, by claiming that Wundt had liberated psychology from philosophy, Boring could advocate his view of psychology as an independent discipline, a view the Harvard philosophers © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-10989-6 — A History of Modern Psychology Per Saugstad Excerpt More Information 4 1 Introduction did not share. His book, therefore, had obvious university–political aims, as Mitchell Ash (1983) noted in a survey of the US study of the history of psychology. Boring’s account of the origin of psychology gave a useful perspective on the ield. However, as later historians have shown, several of the questions he dealt with could be answered differently. The following three questions need a more careful consideration: How is psychology related to philosophy?; How is it related to other natural science disciplines?; and Where did it originate? Philosophy and Scientiic Empirical Psychology In Western civilization, several problems of a psychological nature have been subjected to systematic examination, irst by the Greek philosophers of antiquity, and then by the philosophers

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